No particular theory may ever be regarded as absolutely certain.... No scientific theory is sacrosanct.
Interpretation
Scientific theories are provisional and subject to change rather than being seen as absolute truths.
In this quote, Karl Popper emphasizes the idea that scientific theories should not be considered as definitive truths. Instead, they are always open to questioning, revision, and falsification. This notion highlights the dynamic and evolving nature of scientific inquiry, suggesting that the pursuit of knowledge is an ongoing process rather than a conclusion to be firmly established.
In practice
In a science class discussing the nature of scientific theories.
The growth of our knowledge is the result of a process closely resembling what Darwin called 'natural selection'; that is, the natural selection of hypotheses: our knowledge consists, at every moment, of those hypotheses which have shown their (comparative) fitness by surviving so far in their struggle for existence, a competitive struggle which eliminates those hypotheses which are unfit.
If you can't say it simply and clearly, keep quiet, and keep working on it till you can.
The belief in a political Utopia is especially dangerous. This is possibly connected with the fact that the search for a better world, like the investigation of our environment, is (if I am correct) one of the oldest and most important of all the instincts.
A rationalist is simply someone for whom it is more important to learn than to be proved right; someone who is willing to learn from others - not by simply taking over another's opinions, but by gladly allowing others to criticize his ideas and by gladly criticizing the ideas of others
Thus science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths; neither with the collection of observations, nor with the invention of experiments, but with the critical discussion of myths, and of magical techniques and practices.
I am opposed to looking upon logic as a kind of game. ... One might think that it is a matter of choice or convention which logic one adopts. I disagree with this view.
Should a young scientist working with me come to me after two years of such work and ask me what to do next, I would advise him to get out of science. After two years of work, if a man does not know what to do next, he will never make a real scientist.
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.
Our circadian biology, and the insatiable early-morning demands of a post-industrial way of life, denies us the sleep we vitally need.
There was a time when 'universe' meant 'all there is.' Everything. The whole shebang. The notion of more than one universe, more than one everything, would seemingly be a contradiction in terms.
It is hardly possible to maintain seriously that the evil done by science is not altogether outweighed by the good. For example, if ten million lives were lost in every war, the net effect of science would still have been to increase the average length of life.
On the ordinary view of each species having been independently created, we gain no scientific explanation.
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